Lightforge Helm!

I went on a guild raid of Scholomance, last night. This was a highly successful raid, and I netted my [Lightforge Helm] from Darkmaster Gandling. I'm now up to 5/8 Lightforge, and the helm was the last piece I really wanted.

Update: When it rains, it pours. I played a game of Alterac Valley and hit Honored reputation with Stormpike. I picked up the [Stormpike Sage's Pendant] and [Stormpike Plate Girdle].

I hate Warsong Gulch

Maybe hate is too strong a word. But I find Warsong Gulch to be a demoralizing affair. More than any other battleground, it seems designed to expose the paladin's weaknesses. Unfortunately, ever since the introduction of multiple queues, it is the most played battleground on Bronzebeard.

WSG is all about mobility. And the paladin has no speed to outrun or catch people, and no snares to slow them down, and no ranged weapons to hurt them at a distance. Seeing a tauren druid or shaman drop down, grab the flag, warstomp, and shift to travel form and run away while you are stunned is soul-destroying. Paladins really have only one snare, Hammer of Justice, which we can use once a minute. A second pally snare, Repentance, is a 31-point Retribution talent which does not work on animal forms. This is terribly unfortunate given that animal travel forms (druid and shaman) are the preferred Horde flag carriers.

Paladins on offense is equally hard. Since you have no speed, you cannot keep up with the flag carrier. If you start a heal, given that it is 2.5s long, odds are the person you are healing will be out of range before the heal finishes. If you are the flag carrier, you're so slow that you are easily caught. You can't move while healing, meaning you have to stay still for 2.5s to get a decent heal off. Finally, you can't use your bubbles or you drop the flag.

There's no real role for paladins in WSG that I can see. The best paladin role, that of battlefield healer, doesn't work as well when the point of battle moves faster than your heal. It works in Arathi Basin, as the points of battle are fixed and so people are almost always within range of a heal.

I switched enchants on my [Mirah's Song] from Fiery (chance of +40 fire damage) to Icy (chance of slowing) in order to shore up this weakness. So far, I'm not too sure if it's working. It doesn't seem to be proccing all that much. I'll play a few more games to see if it is an effective strategy.

Quick thoughts on Pursuit of Justice

Testing by various paladins reveals that the Pursuit of Justice talent (8% to movement speed) stacks with mounted movement enhancements, but does not stack with ground movement enhancements. So PoJ is a weaker talent than a lot of the other talents, given that you can just put a speed enchant on your boots and get most of the effect.

However, there may be some areas where the increase to mount speed is useful. For example, in Arathi Basin, I notice that the Alliance almost always caps the Stables before the Horde caps the Farm. Yet the Horde almost always gets to, and often caps, the Blacksmith before the Alliance arrives. I'm not sure why this is--perhaps the route from Horde base to flag is slightly shorter. Regardless, a paladin with PoJ might be able to arrive at the flag fast enough to stop the Horde from capping. As well, there might be some advantage in Alterac Valley, as a paladin at the base will be able to get to the front lines faster.

Of course, the stacking with mounted movement might be unintended, and fixed by Blizzard in an upcoming patch.

Patch 1.9

Patch 1.9 was introduced yesterday. This was the "paladin patch", where paladins were reviewed and given some changes. I feel that, for the most part, this patch just added polish to the paladin in its current form. The talent trees were tightened up, and a few abilities were switched around. Paladin tanking was made a bit easier to use with the Righteous Fury buff. Judgement of Command was changed to add a little more damage. On the whole, the patch was probably a good one for paladins (though I do feel sad about the changes to Holy Shield). It did not, however, address the fundamental dissatisfaction with paladins in raids.

It possibly made paladins a bit better in PvP, though to a large extent this depends on whether Pursuit of Justice (8% bonuse to movement speed) is working properly or not. It is currently stacking with other permanent speed enhancements like Mithril Spurs, even though the tooltip says it does not. (It is not stacking with temporary speed enchancers like potions.) If it does stack with the permanent enhancements, PoJ is an awesome talent, and will help paladins in PvP significantly. If it's a bug, and is fixed/nerfed, then paladins are more or less the same in PvP as they were before the patch. (I'll still take it as I'm lazy and don't want to waste time juggling trinkets).

Prior to this patch, Coriel was specced Holy/Protection (27/24/0). I had all the healing talents, Holy Shield and Improved Blessing of Salvation. It was a very PvE, healing/support, 1H+shield focused build.

Post-patch, I'm going Retribution (18/0/33), mostly for a change of pace. The new build is pretty good, especially for soloing. I can kill things a bit faster than I could before, though I have less survivability when attacked by multiple enemies. Retribution is a very mana-efficient tree, even with judging Command fairly often.

It's an interesting exercise, trying to determine what the paladin talent trees represent. For example, the priest trees (Holy/Discipline/Shadow) are for healing, metamagic, and damage respectively. The purpose of other class trees are also fairly obivious or easy to figure out. The paladin trees (Holy/Protection/Retribution), in contrast, are the source of much debate. The conventional view is that they are healing/tanking/dps, the three main MMO roles. Ellia, a notorious forum poster/troll/devil's advocate, maintains that they are spellcasting/1H+shield/2H. Personally, I think they break down as follows: Holy = doing stuff with mana; Protection = doing stuff when people are hitting you; and Retribution = doing stuff without mana.

I'm not really sure if this is a useful breakdown for paladins, but you have to work with the tools you are given.

Paladins in Raids, Part II

Previously, I have discussed the intended role of the paladin (5th-man) and how that role disappears in a raid setting, forcing the paladin into the healing role. Now, why then are paladins so unhappy at being forced to heal? I think the answer has to do with how players view their characters.

We all have a mental image of our characters. This image is forged by culture, by the class description, and by our play experiences. I think that a player is happiest when the actions her character takes matches the image in her mind (and the loot she gets furthers that image). A rogue is happiest when she is sneaking around or stabbing people people in the back. A hunter is happiest when she is shooting enemies from range. If the rogue was forced to shoot people with a bow, or the hunter melee, they would be less happy. They would still do what they had to do to be effective, but they would be less happy.

This image also extends to loot. Loot that enhances the mental image is the most valued. Rogues go crazy over epic daggers, but aren't that interested in epic guns. But it's vice versa for hunters.

The mental image of the paladin strongly involves wearing plate and hitting things with giant hammers (possibly swords, depending on the player). A situation where the paladin gets to hit something with a giant hammer makes the player of the paladin happy. This is a simple concept, but it's reinforced in all sorts of ways, from our culture's image of paladins, from Dungeons & Dragons, from the Blizzard class description, from game mechanics, and most importantly, from the play experience from levels 1-59. From levels 1-59, paladins are in melee hitting things with giant hammers. It is said that levels 20-30--when we get [Verigan's Fist], a paladin quest reward 2H hammer--are the best levels of a paladin's career. (I still have my [Verigan's Fist] in my bank. I even enchanted it with Demonslaying!)

The fundamental problem with raids is that there isn't enough hitting things with giant hammers.

In fact, most paladins who heal spend most raids out of the melee zone and in the ranged zone. Which is just crazy from the image point of view. Paladins don't even have ranged weapons! But from a pure efficiency standpoint, the paladin should be in the ranged zone. A paladin's healing in raids usually consists of constantly casting Flash of Light, which is low power but highly mana efficient. When you are constantly casting a spell, there's no point in being in the melee zone, as you will never get a chance to actually attack, and you leave yourself more vulnerable to interrupts or damage.

Healing Paladins also wear cloth, leather and mail gear to enhance their healing, as this type of gear tends to be better for healing than plate. Plate armor and survivability only truely matter if you are being attacked.

The paladin's self-image relies on being in the melee zone, wearing plate, and hitting things. The paladin's role in raids requires them to be in the ranged zone, wearing cloth, and not hitting things for maximum efficiency. This difference between image and reality is the source of the paladin's unhappiness.

Some raiding guilds even go so far as to deny paladins loot that enhances the image (such as powerful 2H weapons meant for melee) , and force them to only take loot which enhances the reality (healing gear). From a point-of-view that emphasizes the strict efficiency of the raid, this is a good idea. It makes your healers better. For the paladin player's image, it's another setback.

A lot of suggestions by paladins on the forums have this disconnect at the heart. They cry, "Give us more dps", and think "If we did a lot of damage, we would have a reason to be in the melee zone". Or "Give us a taunt" for "If we could tank better, we would have a reason to be in the melee zone". And of course Blizzard cannot give paladins these things, as they would then be overpowered or eclipse warriors.

Now why then does the shaman not raise as many complaints? Shamans are a spellcasting class, and are more comfortable being in the ranged zone. As well, the cultural connotations of the shaman lend themselves more to the primary healing role. There is not as great a conflict between the shaman image and the shaman reality. In fact, the class that probably has the second greatest disconnect between image and reality is the feral druid. For a feral druid, shapechanging is an essential part of the character's image. Being forced into one shape for all of the raid deviates from the player's image, making them slightly unhappy.

Paladins in Raids, Part I

Continuing on from my previous post about the role of paladins, I'd like to examine the role of paladins in raids, and why this is a source of dissatisfaction for many paladins today. Two caveats, though. First, I'm not an experienced endgame raider, I have not gone into Molten Core. Rather these observations come from trends observed in non-epic raids, forum posts, and conversations with other paladins. Second, I make the assumption that the paladin is designed for a "5th-man" role, and not one of the three standard roles (tank, healer, dps).

There are two problems, both related to each other, at the heart of paladin dissatisfaction in raids. First, the increase in numbers eliminates the need for the 5th-man role. Second, and more importantly, the paladin's role in raids does not match the player's vision of her character.

To see the first point, lets take the standard 5-man party of tank, healer, dps, dps, and 5th-man. If we expand it to ten people we get 2 tanks, 2 healers, 4 dps, and 2 5th-man. However, the point of a 5th-man is to provide redundancy to the tanks and healers. So instead of taking 2 5th-man, let's take 1 tank and 1 healer. Each can provide redundancy for their respective groups much better than a 5th-man. Boom, we've just eliminated the paladin's role, the one that it was designed for. The ideal raid now consists of 3 tanks, 3 healers and 4 dps.

But that's not all. The need for tanking does not scale with additional numbers. The entire point of a tank is to funnel all damage taken by the group to a single point. Then the healers funnel all healing to the same point. In the ideal raid a single person, the Main Tank, would take all of the damage and receive all of the healing. (In practice, of course, it is much messier, but the ideal is still valid.) So in our 10-man raid, we don't really need the third tank, as the second should provide enough redundancy. Instead we replace the 3rd tank with another dps or healer. (Usually dps, as healers are rare). So the ideal 10-man group is now 2 tanks, 3.5 healers (usually ends up as 3 healers), and 4.5 dps (ends up as 5 dps).[1]

Here's where real life comes into play. There are a lot of paladins and shamans. There are few priests. Of necessity, paladins and shamans are forced into the healer slots in raids. It is important to note that the healer role is not the role that paladins were designed for. The role they were designed for, 5th-man, simply does not exist in raids.

Now why do paladins chafe at being forced into the healing role? Why don't shamans raise the same level of complaints? The answer, I believe, lies in player psychology, and the nature of paladin healing. Another post for another time.

[1] If you extrapolate these numbers out to a 40-man raid, you'd see that they come very close to a raid that has 5 of each of the 8 character classes (counting all paladins and druids as healers). Hopefully, this is an indication that I am on the right track.

Boring Day

Bronzebeard now has server queues of upwards of 250 people. Quite sad, really.

I didn't accomplish a whole lot today. I helped some guildmates with a quest and completed another quest dealing with the aftermath of some Sunken Temple quests. Unfortunately, the next quest in the chain is in Blackrock Spire, so that's the end of that chain for a while. I tried to queue up for some PvP, but the wait times were just too long.

Oh well, tomorrow is the first of our endgame guild runs. Hopefully that will go well, and it will become a regular affair. Ideally, I'm hoping for enough people to raid the Undead side of Stratholme. It is New Years Eve in Australia, so we may not get a lot of people though.

What is a Paladin?

If you look on the Blizzard paladin class forums, you'll see a lot of unhappy paladins. They feel that we are unable to tank, or do damage, or even heal effectively. They feel that in the endgame the paladin is reduced to a mediocre "buffbot", who's sole purpose is to provide buffs to other classes who do the real work.

There is some truth to these complaints.

However, I think that the problem with paladins goes deeper than this. The paladin class is not underpowered, in my view. The problem is that it is designed for a different game than the one that exists. The paladin class is designed for levels 1-59 5-man PvE. It simply has not made a successful transition into PvP or raiding.

To see my point, remove the paladin and shaman, and take a look at the other classes in WoW. There is a lot of symmetry in place. We have one tanking class (warrior), one healing class (priest), four DPS classes (mage, warlock, rogue, hunter), and one "replacement" hybrid class (druid). The reason I call the druid a replacement hybrid is because they can replace any other class, but not the same time. If you don't have a warrior, substitute a druid. If you don't have a priest, substitute a druid.

It's reasonably clear that Blizzard intends a 5-man party to have one healer, one tank, and some DPS. But where does the paladin and shaman fit in this scheme? In my opinion, they are meant to be a "5th-man" class. Like the druid, they are a hybrid class. Unlike the druid, they cannot fully replace the warrior or priest. However, in my experience, the combination of "tank, healer, 5th-man" is stronger than either "tank, tank, healer" or "tank, healer, healer". They do this by providing necessary redundancy to both tank and healer, at the same time. They cannot replace the first tank or healer, but they can replace the second tank or healer.

So, in summary, the ideal 5-man party is "tank, healer, dps, dps, 5th-man". The paladin and shaman are designed as 5th-man classes, and are not intended to replace any of the other three roles.

In my experience, Blizzard has nailed the mark here. Playing my Paladin in a 5-man instance is a complete blast, and is a ton of fun.

The problem is that the game has expanded to more than 5-man instances. More thoughts on this to come later.

Introductory Post

This is going to be a World of Warcraft blog. My main character is a 60 Paladin named Coriel. I play on the Bronzebeard server.

This blog is going to be interesting to do, given that Coriel is already 60. I haven't yet started endgame content like Zul'Gurub or Molten Core, so hopefully this blog will chronicle my journey into endgame.

Here's hoping that this is a successful experiment.